[Gangliosides as carbohydrate antigens associated with cancer and their possible use in tumor immunotherapy]

Abstract

Aberrant glycosylation is a universal feature of a cancer cell. The examples of such differences are the observed quantitative and qualitative changes in the expression of gangliosides of the tumors of the neuroectodermal origin. The role of gangliosides in cancer progression has been described, as well as their abilities to act as immunosuppressors. The presence of large amounts of these tumor associated carbohydrate antigens (TACA) on cancer cells, as compared to normal cells, opens the possibilities to use them in diagnosis and immunotherapeutic approaches which engage the immune system to fight with a tumor disease. The passive immunotherapy of neuroblastoma with anti-gangliosides monoclonal antibodies and their derivatives has been reviewed. The advantages and the disadvantages of using carbohydrate antigens as vaccines have been summarized. The examples of use of active specific immunotherapy with gangliosides have been described, as well as the approaches to modify the immunogenic potential of these antigens with carbohydrate-protein conjugate vaccines, and antiidiotypic antibodies used with immunomodulators such as QA-21. Finally, in a separate paragraph, the application of anti-carbohydrate antibodies to screen phage display peptide libraries for mimotopes has been described. The perspectives of using carbohydrate mimicking surrogate antigens in the immunotherapy of cancer have been discussed.